Judge Dismisses Charges Against 1 In Missile Plot Case

5 October 1990
Sun Sentinel
Warren Richey

A federal judge in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday dismissed all charges against one of four defendants in an alleged plot to smuggle a Stinger anti-aircraft missile to Northern Ireland to shoot down British Army helicopters.

As a result of the judge`s action, Sean McCann, 34, of Toronto, was expected to be immediately released from the Metropolitan Correctional Center where he had been held on the arms smuggling charges for almost 10 months.

But 15 minutes before he was to be set free, the U.S. Border Patrol ordered him turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service on an outstanding warrant related to the now-dismissed charges in the Stinger case.

Jo Ann Harris, McCann`s New York attorney, said she would appeal to the INS to permit McCann to fly home to Canada on the next available flight today.

``As far as I know he is supposed to be home tomorrow. I don`t think he`ll hang around down there,`` said Terry Mulgrew, McCann`s uncle in Canada.

Mulgrew was critical of the federal officials who charged his nephew in January in West Palm Beach.

``I think the FBI guys are too anxious to nab someone and not find out whether they are guilty or not,`` he said.

U.S. District Judge Jose Gonzalez threw out the charges against McCann on the recommendation of acting U.S. Attorney Dexter Lehtinen.

Diane Cossin, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney`s Office, declined to comment on why the charges were dropped. But she said prosecutors did not expect the action to hurt the government`s case against the three remaining defendants.

The case against McCann began to unravel last summer when federal agents admitted that they had made a mistake when they said in sworn affidavits that McCann had been a lookout during a meeting between undercover agents and the alleged smugglers to set up the illegal weapons deal.

Federal officials later conceded that McCann was more than 1,000 miles away in Texas at the time of the meeting.

U.S. Magistrate Ann E. Vitunac raised serious questions about the government`s case against McCann in a July report to Gonzalez. She said the evidence was ``slim`` and ``circumstantial.``

And she noted, ``The government has no evidence to prove that Sean McCann was aware of the alleged criminal activity (in which he was charged).``

Stephen Bronis, the Miami attorney for a co-defendant in the Stinger case, said: ``McCann was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

``Magistrate Vitunac`s report I think brought McCann`s position out in the open and demonstrated that what McCann had said all along was pretty accurate,`` Bronis said.

The three other defendants, Kevin McKinley, Seamus Moley and Joseph McColgan, are scheduled to go on trial in November.

Federal documents say the three conspired in December and January to buy a shoulder-fired Stinger missile, C-4 plastic explosives and other munitions from undercover agents posing as black-market arms dealers.

The Stinger was to be sold for $50,000. It was to be used by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, which is waging a bloody guerrilla campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.